Doing Educational Research by Taking Seriously Chen’s Account of “Asia as Method” - In a Korean Case of Modern Schooling

Oct 15, 2026

This paper illustrates how Chen’s “Asia as method” can guide a case study of Korean experiences with modern schooling. By centering the author’s perspectives as both student and teacher, the study navigates decolonial and deimperial orientations through critical distance from native culture and from the West. It highlights tensions between competing moral languages in education and proposes an East Asian subjectivity that educational research can actively shape.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time35 min

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Abstract

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Doing Educational Research by Taking Seriously Chen’s Account of “Asia as Method”: In a Korean Case of Modern Schooling Duck-Joo Kwak (곽덕주) Seoul National University ECNU Review of Education 2024, Vol. 7(3) 641–654 © The Author(s) 2023 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[DOI: 10.1177/20965311231182723](DOI: 10.1177/20965311231182723)[ ](DOI: 10.1177/20965311231182723)[journals.sagepub.com/home/roe](journals.sagepub.com/home/roe) Abstract Purpose: This paper aims to exemplify how Chen’s idea of “Asia as method” can be employed ina case study on Korean experiences of modern schooling. Design/Approach/Methods: It does so by focusing on the author’s personal experiences of modern schooling as both a student and a teacher in modern Korea. In this description, the author makes two seemingly contradictory moves: a move toward decolonialization by keeping a critical distance from her own native culture and a move toward deimperialization by keeping her distance from the West. Findings: This shows the challenges and tensions in the Korean experience of modern schooling as a student or teacher dealing with different moral languages such as Confucian and rationalist or rationalist and post-rationalist. Originality/Value: This experimental work suggests the possibility of forming a uniquely East Asian subjectivity while showing how educational research in East Asia can be performative in the sense that it changes the way East Asians understand themselves and the world around them. Corresponding author: Duck-Joo Kwak, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Korea. Email: [djkwak@snu.ac.kr](djkwak@snu.ac.kr) Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as speciﬁed on the SAGE and Open Access page ([https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage](https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage)). Keywords Asia as method, decolonialization, deimperialization, East Asian subjectivity, education as selftransformation, two moral languages Date received: 20 December 2022; accepted: 20 March 2023 Introduction In this paper, I ask whether it would make sense to talk about the task of philosophy of education asa discipline in East Asia and explore its potential through Kuan-Hsing Chen’s idea of “Asia as method.” What do I mean by “the task of philosophy of education as a discipline in East Asia”? This phrase seems to assume a regional identity or commonality that could already be problematic for some of us. Setting aside its conceptual feasibility, what I mean here is to see if there is something we East Asians can learn from each other to better understand and tackle our educational problems. Why among East Asians? I think this may be explained in terms of so-called postmodern conditions in which something universal sounds epistemologically problematic and something global sounds politically suspicious; thus, it seems like a high time for something particular and something local/provincial to emerge as a new path for our intellectual inquiry. Therefore, regional and cross-cultural studies have ﬂourished. However, a more historically speciﬁc account of the necessity for Chen’s regional study would be more appealing. He claims that knowledge production in (East) Asia depends heavily on the West, as the latter is taken by the former as a reference point against which to measure itself or as a goal it aspires to; this is the heritage of Western colonialism in the modern history of (East) Asia. Interestingly, Chen’s idea underlying “Asia as metho

FAQs

What is the main purpose of the paper?

The paper aims to show how Chen’s “Asia as method” can be used in a case study of Korean experiences of modern schooling.

How does the study approach decolonialization and deimperialization?

It keeps a critical distance from the author’s native culture for decolonialization and maintains distance from the West for deimperialization.

What challenges does the paper identify in Korean modern schooling?

It describes tensions in education encountered by students or teachers when dealing with different moral languages such as Confucian and rationalist, or rationalist and post-rationalist.

Oct 15, 2026

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